Atlanta Hawks vs Cleveland Cavaliers Prediction: Who’s Going To Set The Tone?
Atlanta Hawks vs Cleveland Cavaliers Prediction: Who’s Going To Set The Tone?
Atlanta Hawks First To 15 PTS (-106) (Bet $106 to win $100)
Upon first glance, you wouldn’t see any edge here. These are two very even teams in a game where Vegas has the spread with Hawks as 1 point favorites. After some deep diving into these teams' track records you start to notice some trends. The Cavs win plenty of games in the second half and the Hawks usually get most of their production from the starters.
Cleveland is an outstanding basketball team this year. Truthfully outperforming anyone's expectations of them and seem to really be mature and poised for how young they are. With that being said, they have lost five straight races to 15 and in three of those games they were favored by at least six PTS. Losing the races to the Pacers twice and Spurs are two unexpected losses and leads me to think a team like Atlanta should have a very good chance to come in and start hotter than Cleveland.
Atlanta has lost four of their last five games so you must think I’m out of my mind for betting on them to do anything tonight. Well hear me out, Atlanta may have lost four of their last five outright but they have won 5 of their last 6 races to 15 points.
Atlanta's recent struggles haven't been due to slow starts, it's been poor bench play and inabilities to close games. Neither will play a factor for us in our bet. I know Collins is out which is a blow but Trae Young is usually aggressive to open games and as long as he plays I will feel confident. Trae averages 7.2 1Q points and averages just over 10 minutes played to open the game. He should be on the court for the entirety of this bet.